Since 2007, Anna Dobrovolskaya has been working with creating awareness about human rights in Russia. She has been working with human rights schools educating young and old about their rights and creating a place where they can feel safe to speak freely. She has been training people to go to court, to observe the police working, to help with research. So that they will be prepared to act in a situation when their or others’ rights are violated. The YHRM focuses on offering solidarity, collaboration and the understanding of our common challenges. Saturday October 29, she visited Globaliseringskonferansen in Oslo, to talk about human rights in Russia.

Can you tell us more about your work on creating awareness about human rights in Russia?

– The work of Youth Human Rights Movement (YHRM) in Russia is mainly targeted to raise awareness about human rights amongst young people. We do this via human rights schools, mainly in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and a few other large cities,which are open for everyone who wants to learn more. Basically we create a special space where people can become human rights activists, where they can learn more about the work and projects of different human rights NGOs, as well as joining organizations in the future.

Every 6 months, we educate several hundreds persons aged 18-35, and about 3 out of 10 of them remain activists in different NGOs, or create their own initiatives regarding human rights.

In addition to the seminars, we also run several awareness-raising projects where we use different «modern» instruments to talk about human rights, such as comic-books or cartoons and exhibitions.

We get a lot of interest from young people, but of course, our efforts are not enough to involve really huge amounts of people in this field. The most important aim of this work for us is to spread human rights values and provide possibilities for the newcomers to the human rights movement to meet peers and get first-hand knowledge from experts.

How has the “Foreign agent law” from 2012 affected the work of YHRM and your work on creating a place where people can speak freely?

– There is no single NGO in Russia which would not suffer from the new laws. Our NGO was not included to the foreign agents list, but what’s worst about this law is that the words «foreign agents» has become associated with human rights defenders. Ordinary people do not get into all the legal details, so for them, all human rights defenders are foreign agents, and then we have to explain why we are not.

If we were included in the list, it would have become more complicated to maintain partner relations with state bodies, schools, universities, and for some our colleagues, also with courts, prison authorities and state lawyers etc.

For those NGOs who has been included in the list, it has also meant hundreds of hour spent in courtrooms, huge fines and lots of lost newcomers.

At the same time I think the laws in themselves did not have such a huge influence on freedom of expression, but that the law-enforcement practice had. Since the conflict in Ukraine and Maidan in 2013. the country more and more soaks itself in atmosphere of hatred and fear. Based on different research we now see the lowest level of mutual trust between people, and also a growing trend of trying to find an enemy who can be blamed for all the bad events.

The YHRM focuses on offering solidarity and collaboration. How do you collaborate with others?

–We always tried to think outside of national borders, and we monitor the human rights situation not only in Russia. YHRM was created as an international community, and we try to stay as much connected with our colleagues from other countries as possible.

We had been actively involved in the solidarity with Belarus human rights defenders after the events of 2010, which has been a very good example of international solidarity actions, when people from different countries were doing really joint actions, shared plans and developed joint advocacy strategies.

As a network, we always provide solidarity actions support to all our members, in case of risk or any other kind of emergency.

Unfortunately the last years have been very hard for all of us, so most of the time, everyone is busy with their own survival rather than with real help and solidarity with others.

Nature and Youth and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee has invited the Moscow theatre group Teatr Doc to Oslo, to show a new play on Russian human rights defenders. Teatr Doc’s work is political and critical, and this has caused the authorities to take action. In late 2014, they were evicted from their location, and a special anti-extremism police division charged them with a case of extremism. The theater had been screening clips from a documentary on the political turmoil and bloodshed in Ukraine. Fortunately, the charges were dropped and they found a new place in a former fish shop. At Globaliseringskonferansen in Oslo, Saturday October 29, they will show a new play reflecting the unvarnished reality of everyday life in Russia.

What are you going to show at Globaliseringskonferansen?

– It will be the first premiere abroad of new a play about Russian human rights defenders. At the moment it is called «The last party». It was already presented as a draft play to the audience in Russia, and the final premiere in Moscow will be November 18th.

The play is based on interviews with human rights activists, and the reality of their everyday life as human rights defenders. We have collected 11 interviews from different Russian human right defenders, some of them are known both within and outside of the country, while some are only known in their region or sphere of work.

At Globaliseringskonferansen, the text from the interviews will be followed by real quotes from Russian media and online blogs, saying how bad human rights defenders are, and how much harm they bring the country.

The play will be performed by 5 actors from Teatr.doc, accompanied by Anna Dobrovolskaya, who will be telling her story of personal relations with the interview heroes from the interviews.

We expect that the play will be very interesting for the Moscow public, and that it will meet huge demand and expectations, as people very often don’t know anything about the human rights defenders and hardly have heard about more than one or two names.

Can you tell us more about how it is to work with freedom of expression in Russia today?

– After we had created and played our earlier documentary play about the prisoners of the «Bolotnaya» case, our theater was expelled from the premises and cut from all the existing state and municipal grants. Now we have to survive on our own, and by very sporadic support from our Western donors as well as crowdfunding campaigns among Russian citizens.

At the same time, in this situation we have no other boundaries and may really play what we want. We have for example presented the play «Coming out of the closet», which is about LGBT people in Russia, and it became extremely popular among the Moscow audience. We also have a play about the conflict in Ukraine, and the human rights violations and repressions in Crimea, called «The war is near», which is very well known both among the theater public, media and the audience.

Sometimes actors don’t feel comfortable with the topics and may refuse to take part in the plays. Then we find someone who has no personal contradictions, and who is not afraid to speak out.

For further information, read an interview with Elena Gremina, chairwoman of the theater, here.

On Saturday October 29th, at 19.30, the Russian drama company Teatr Doc will show a special play made exclusively for the Globalization Conference in Oslo. The play is called «The Last Party. Play about Human Rights Defenders in Russia», and is based on interviews with human rights activists, reflecting the unvarnished reality of everyday life in Russia.

The background for this seminar is Russian authorities’ resistance to political cooperation across national borders, which is becoming a threat to Russian civil society organizations (NGO’s). New Russian legislation is a direct attack on the Russian human rights movement and leads to curtailing of the Russian civil society. People who have previously been able to raise their voices and speak freely, are now being silenced by Russian legislation.

The string of new legislations seen since 2012, is in conflict with international human rights and the Russian Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of association. These are new laws with a broad scope and unspecific definitions. This means that the government can use these laws when it suits them, against almost anyone. Activists are living in constant uncertainty about if the laws will affect them, and if so, when.

In addition to the play by Teatr Doc, Nature and Youth and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee have also invited Russian lawyer Aleksander Popkov and Anna Dobrovolskaya from The Youth Human Rights Movement (YHRM) to talk about how activists work under such conditions and how they are continuously seeking new forms of cooperation and new forms of activism. The conversation will be moderated by Julie Wilhelmsen from Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI).

Aleksander Popkov has been working with activists from a legal perspective, protecting those who are suffering from human rights violations. Popkovs clients include Hennadiy Afanasyev, a Crimean activist convicted and sentenced to jail on the charges of plotting a terrorist act, and Yevgeny Vitishko, an environmentalist who was jailed because he spoke up about the ecological disaster in the wake of the Sochi Olympics. Popkov also represented two of the members of Pussy Riot, Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova.

Since 2007, Anna Dobrovolskaya has been working with creating awareness about human rights in Russia. She has been working with human rights schools educating young and old about their rights and creating a place where they can feel safe to speak freely. She has been training people to go to court, to observe the police working, and to help with research, so that they will be prepared to act in a situation when their or others’ rights are violated. The YHRM focuses on offering solidarity, collaboration and the understanding of our common challenges.

With this seminar we would like to elucidate how activism in Russia is being challenged and how some people refuse to give up and keep on fighting for what they believe is right. See you there!